The Faith Community and Priestly Ministry
Bishop Peter Ingham's Address - Saturday, 4 February 2012
This Faith Community of St Columbkille Corrimal marks the centenary of its Church.
This parish has been preaching Jesus Christ and his way of life and celebrating Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament for over 100 years. We give thanks to God for the Gospel influence on so many people who have in turn greatly contributed to the community at large.
The priestly ministry of its pastors, now embodied in Fr Graham Schmitzer PP and former PP, Fr Maurice Rosa, also with us today, together with the priestly outreach of Fr Chris Riley to young people in dire circumstances through “Youth Off The Streets” is great witness to what the Catholic priesthood is about.
In the 19th century, well before electricity was invented, city streets were lit after dark by gas lamps. Lamplighters went about every night, lighting the lamps with a flaming torch.
One night, when, he was an old man, the 19th century British writer, John Ruskin, was sitting at a window in his house with one of his mates. Across the valley was a street on a hillside. Over there Ruskin could see the torch of the lamplighter igniting lamps as he went. Because of the darkness, Ruskin could not actually see the lamplighter, but only his torch and the trail of lights it left behind.
After watching for a while, Ruskin pointed to the trail of lights and said to his mate sitting next to him: “that lamplighter is a good example of how Christian men and women should live. You may never have seen them. But you know they passed through the world by the trail of lights they left behind.”
Today, we follow in the footsteps of those who have left their trail of light for us to follow. And in turn, people will know we passed through this world by the trail of lights we leave behind, to light the way for others to follow.
Jesus is the Light of the World. (John 8:12) He told us to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14) – to let our light shine so as to overcome the darkness of sin and ignorance.
When I was a student for the priesthood at St Patrick’s Manly in the early 1960s along with Fr M Rosa, one thing about ministry drummed into us was a Latin phrase Salus animarum suprema lex – the salvation of souls is the supreme law! In other words, that’s what we were to be about as priests: getting people to heaven and helping people to achieve the purpose of our human existence which is to be with God forever, the one Being who can completely satisfy every yearning we have.
A priest is, in the Words of St Paul, “an ambassador for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
Of course, I soon learned that, in order to get this important message across to people, I had to be “user-friendly” to the people with whom I came into contact. I had to overcome my shyness and learn to try and meet people where they were at. If I am to relate to others for the sake fo the Gospel, I can’t afford to be discourteous, rude, bad-tempered, or a user of people. Rather I have to learn to be pastoral after the example of Christ, the Good Shepherd, to treat people in a way that respects their dignity; to be welcoming and to make people feel at home and comfortable in my presence. Our priestly ministry is oriented to people. Our priestly ministry is where the human and the divine intersect. As Fr Thomas O’Meara says, “Our ministry is oriented to people at that invisible horizon where grace seeks to become concrete in what we say, in how we celebrate the Liturgy, and in how we conduct ourselves.”
The well-known Dutch Theologian, Fr Bernard Häring, believes that, at best, all we priests can do is remain open to God’s generous disposition and, in recognising that, try to personify God’s generosity in our pastoral attitude and in our untiring practice of giving enouragement to others.
Fr Bernard Häring also talks about us all trying to be on the same wavelength as Jesus Christ who is the Lord of history – Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrew 13:8). Jesus is the One who came in Bethlehem and on Calavary, who comes now in Word and Sacrament and in the grace of his Holy Spirit, and who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
We, Christian people, need to go forward, always in company with Jesus the Lord of history.
So, Fr Häring says going forward with Jesus, in grateful memory of what Jesus has done for us as our Saviour, can be a challenging and risky rememberance, because he says, if the Risen Christ of history can choose to be wholly present to us in the action of breaking the Bread of Life, can he not also transform us into untiring pilgrims (not getting weary on the journey of fidelity to Jesus) and can help us to become the vanguards of history.
Being a Christian is about being a disciple of Jesus, our Master. Our common ground (be we married, single, in a religious order or congregation, priest, bishop) our common ground is Baptism, which calls us to live and die as a disciple, a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Our common Baptism, giving us the identity and privilege of being disciple of Jesus, needs to be kept firmly in our minds.
All of us as Christians, be we lay people or clergy, have to be like a leaven in the midst of the dough that makes the bread good to eat. We try to make this world a better place, because we bring with us the values, the virtues, the insights for living that Jesus Christ embodies and taught – St Paul saw that a Christian way of life is the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus, which becomes evident in our behaviour – in things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22) A good tree bears good fruit – a bad or diseased tree bears bad fruit. You can’t buy these fruits of the Spirit of Jesus, yet they are the very items that enrich our personalities and make us attrctive to others. To acquire them, we need to pray and come close to the Lord Jesus who is always available to us. If God seems far away – guess who moved!
People living under the influence of the Spirit of Jesus and bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their attitudes and practice, make a wonderful contribution in their families and in the wider community.
St Paul said “don’t be overcome by evil rather overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:21) I believe that when you have a breakdown in practising religious faith and values, a marginalising of virtue and faith, you have a rise in the rates of crime and violence, as we are witnessing. The early morning radio news from Sydney is often such bad news of crime and violence in our cities and suburbs.
“Don’t be overcome with evil, rather overcome evil with good” – do something – Be what, we believe!
Fr Christ Riley is a stand out example of this with his Youth Off The Streets community organisation working for young people who are homeless, drug dependent and recovering from abuse.
Youth Off The Streets was started in 1991 by Fr Chris Riley. It has grown from a single food van delivering meals to young homeless people on the streets of Kings Cross, to a major agency providing a wide range of services to youth.
Youth Off The Streets has helped more than 70,000 people with less than half of its funding coming from government sources. It employs more than 150 people and has more than 800 volunteers.
It provides crisis care for young people still living on the streets with a food van, youth refuge and outreach programs. It also operates an innovative drug and alcohol program specifically designed for your people. Accredited independent high schools in Surry Hills, the Southern Highlands and Merrylands provide educational opportunities and support for young people living on the streets or who are unable to attend mainstream high schools. Many of these young people go on to achieve their Higher School Certificate.
In 1997, Fr Riley opened Key College, another independent high school to help young people, who are lviing on the streets and in temporary accommodation, return to school.
Medium to long-term residential rehabilitation programs, located in the Southern Highlands and the Hunter Valley, provide support for young people who have made the commitment to living a drug-free and crime-free lifestyles. They attend school as well as receive counselling, life skills and vocational training.
After the residential programs they are offered a semi-independent living and mentoring program, designed to help them engage in further study or to find meaningful employment. Both the employer and the young person are supported through their first year of working together.
A new ASPIRE program delivers innovative drug prevention and early intervention strategies to young people disconnected from mainstream education. This program and the GetReel drug education competition and curriculum and the Values Education Youth Making a Difference resource is now available to schools across Australia.
You can see why Fr Chris would have been again nominated as Australian of the Year. But civil recognition is not what he or the KSC or the Church are about – all of this, and all of the multitude of pastoral care offered through parishes and church organisations such as CatholicCare and St Vincent de Paul flows from our love and imitation of Jesus Christ. As Christ’s disciples, we seek to make a difference for good in the community.
Going forward with Jesus Christ in grateful memory of what Jesus has done for us as our saviour is a challenging and risky remembrance, but the trail of lights we leave behind us keep lighting the way for others to follow.
This parish has been preaching Jesus Christ and his way of life and celebrating Jesus Christ in Word and Sacrament for over 100 years. We give thanks to God for the Gospel influence on so many people who have in turn greatly contributed to the community at large.
The priestly ministry of its pastors, now embodied in Fr Graham Schmitzer PP and former PP, Fr Maurice Rosa, also with us today, together with the priestly outreach of Fr Chris Riley to young people in dire circumstances through “Youth Off The Streets” is great witness to what the Catholic priesthood is about.
In the 19th century, well before electricity was invented, city streets were lit after dark by gas lamps. Lamplighters went about every night, lighting the lamps with a flaming torch.
One night, when, he was an old man, the 19th century British writer, John Ruskin, was sitting at a window in his house with one of his mates. Across the valley was a street on a hillside. Over there Ruskin could see the torch of the lamplighter igniting lamps as he went. Because of the darkness, Ruskin could not actually see the lamplighter, but only his torch and the trail of lights it left behind.
After watching for a while, Ruskin pointed to the trail of lights and said to his mate sitting next to him: “that lamplighter is a good example of how Christian men and women should live. You may never have seen them. But you know they passed through the world by the trail of lights they left behind.”
Today, we follow in the footsteps of those who have left their trail of light for us to follow. And in turn, people will know we passed through this world by the trail of lights we leave behind, to light the way for others to follow.
Jesus is the Light of the World. (John 8:12) He told us to be the light of the world (Matthew 5:14) – to let our light shine so as to overcome the darkness of sin and ignorance.
When I was a student for the priesthood at St Patrick’s Manly in the early 1960s along with Fr M Rosa, one thing about ministry drummed into us was a Latin phrase Salus animarum suprema lex – the salvation of souls is the supreme law! In other words, that’s what we were to be about as priests: getting people to heaven and helping people to achieve the purpose of our human existence which is to be with God forever, the one Being who can completely satisfy every yearning we have.
A priest is, in the Words of St Paul, “an ambassador for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God.” (2 Corinthians 5:20)
Of course, I soon learned that, in order to get this important message across to people, I had to be “user-friendly” to the people with whom I came into contact. I had to overcome my shyness and learn to try and meet people where they were at. If I am to relate to others for the sake fo the Gospel, I can’t afford to be discourteous, rude, bad-tempered, or a user of people. Rather I have to learn to be pastoral after the example of Christ, the Good Shepherd, to treat people in a way that respects their dignity; to be welcoming and to make people feel at home and comfortable in my presence. Our priestly ministry is oriented to people. Our priestly ministry is where the human and the divine intersect. As Fr Thomas O’Meara says, “Our ministry is oriented to people at that invisible horizon where grace seeks to become concrete in what we say, in how we celebrate the Liturgy, and in how we conduct ourselves.”
The well-known Dutch Theologian, Fr Bernard Häring, believes that, at best, all we priests can do is remain open to God’s generous disposition and, in recognising that, try to personify God’s generosity in our pastoral attitude and in our untiring practice of giving enouragement to others.
Fr Bernard Häring also talks about us all trying to be on the same wavelength as Jesus Christ who is the Lord of history – Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrew 13:8). Jesus is the One who came in Bethlehem and on Calavary, who comes now in Word and Sacrament and in the grace of his Holy Spirit, and who will come again to judge the living and the dead.
We, Christian people, need to go forward, always in company with Jesus the Lord of history.
So, Fr Häring says going forward with Jesus, in grateful memory of what Jesus has done for us as our Saviour, can be a challenging and risky rememberance, because he says, if the Risen Christ of history can choose to be wholly present to us in the action of breaking the Bread of Life, can he not also transform us into untiring pilgrims (not getting weary on the journey of fidelity to Jesus) and can help us to become the vanguards of history.
Being a Christian is about being a disciple of Jesus, our Master. Our common ground (be we married, single, in a religious order or congregation, priest, bishop) our common ground is Baptism, which calls us to live and die as a disciple, a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Our common Baptism, giving us the identity and privilege of being disciple of Jesus, needs to be kept firmly in our minds.
All of us as Christians, be we lay people or clergy, have to be like a leaven in the midst of the dough that makes the bread good to eat. We try to make this world a better place, because we bring with us the values, the virtues, the insights for living that Jesus Christ embodies and taught – St Paul saw that a Christian way of life is the fruit of the Spirit of Jesus, which becomes evident in our behaviour – in things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness and self-control. (Galatians 5:22) A good tree bears good fruit – a bad or diseased tree bears bad fruit. You can’t buy these fruits of the Spirit of Jesus, yet they are the very items that enrich our personalities and make us attrctive to others. To acquire them, we need to pray and come close to the Lord Jesus who is always available to us. If God seems far away – guess who moved!
People living under the influence of the Spirit of Jesus and bearing the fruits of the Holy Spirit in their attitudes and practice, make a wonderful contribution in their families and in the wider community.
St Paul said “don’t be overcome by evil rather overcome evil with good.” (Rom 12:21) I believe that when you have a breakdown in practising religious faith and values, a marginalising of virtue and faith, you have a rise in the rates of crime and violence, as we are witnessing. The early morning radio news from Sydney is often such bad news of crime and violence in our cities and suburbs.
“Don’t be overcome with evil, rather overcome evil with good” – do something – Be what, we believe!
Fr Christ Riley is a stand out example of this with his Youth Off The Streets community organisation working for young people who are homeless, drug dependent and recovering from abuse.
Youth Off The Streets was started in 1991 by Fr Chris Riley. It has grown from a single food van delivering meals to young homeless people on the streets of Kings Cross, to a major agency providing a wide range of services to youth.
Youth Off The Streets has helped more than 70,000 people with less than half of its funding coming from government sources. It employs more than 150 people and has more than 800 volunteers.
It provides crisis care for young people still living on the streets with a food van, youth refuge and outreach programs. It also operates an innovative drug and alcohol program specifically designed for your people. Accredited independent high schools in Surry Hills, the Southern Highlands and Merrylands provide educational opportunities and support for young people living on the streets or who are unable to attend mainstream high schools. Many of these young people go on to achieve their Higher School Certificate.
In 1997, Fr Riley opened Key College, another independent high school to help young people, who are lviing on the streets and in temporary accommodation, return to school.
Medium to long-term residential rehabilitation programs, located in the Southern Highlands and the Hunter Valley, provide support for young people who have made the commitment to living a drug-free and crime-free lifestyles. They attend school as well as receive counselling, life skills and vocational training.
After the residential programs they are offered a semi-independent living and mentoring program, designed to help them engage in further study or to find meaningful employment. Both the employer and the young person are supported through their first year of working together.
A new ASPIRE program delivers innovative drug prevention and early intervention strategies to young people disconnected from mainstream education. This program and the GetReel drug education competition and curriculum and the Values Education Youth Making a Difference resource is now available to schools across Australia.
You can see why Fr Chris would have been again nominated as Australian of the Year. But civil recognition is not what he or the KSC or the Church are about – all of this, and all of the multitude of pastoral care offered through parishes and church organisations such as CatholicCare and St Vincent de Paul flows from our love and imitation of Jesus Christ. As Christ’s disciples, we seek to make a difference for good in the community.
Going forward with Jesus Christ in grateful memory of what Jesus has done for us as our saviour is a challenging and risky remembrance, but the trail of lights we leave behind us keep lighting the way for others to follow.
